[Dujon] I’m in Lithuania for a few days. A concert of Armenian music on folk instruments last night, now seeing the sights of Vilnius before coming home Sunday.

Another warm, still, sunny day - up to 16°C in the grounds of Plas Huws and it's still only February. Knowing that March and early April can be utterly foul I'm not looking forward to the end of this spell.

I believe I am having a touch of hay fever. In February! 13°C here, bright sunshine, and promising so for the next few days.

(Temperature estimate from the BBC weather site, not an actual thermometer in my garden.)

(Raak) Assuming you're in Naarj I'd say the temperature was a little higher than that - possibly 15-16°C. Max 15.9° here in the Elevated Surrey Desert.

It's been 18.8°C in the grounds of Plas Huws today, a February record (for here) by some distance, the previous best being 17.0°C in Feb 98. I even had the back door open, unheard of in Feb.

It's summer, that's what it is.

Summer what, Raak?

[Dujon] It's icumen in.

(Duj) It's already come in. 20.8°C here this afternoon. This is higher than the average max for June. You may laugh.

Same in Glasgow, where Gorbals' warming is now obvious.

Why would I laugh, Rosie? If you thought that I might, then I suspect you would break into loud guffaws should I reveal how often the minimum temperature at Castille Duwhan dropped below the freezing point (of water). ;)
If it will make you feel any better it's 11:00 on Wednesday as I type; The outside shade temperature is 22.1ºC. As we use the meteorological seasons in this country, this coming Friday is the first day of our Autumn (as opposed to the equinox on 2019-03-21 08.59 my summer time *bring out George Gershwin or it'll be too late*).

(Dujon) It freezes overnight here on an average of 39 days a year and stays below freezing all day on 3 days.
Our hot very mild spell has ended. March will probably be 'orrible, wet and cold with an average temperature about 6°C with sleet and floods. (That's not a forecast, it's a miserablism).

I came across this today:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst

Is it that serous? It must be admitted that more people means more use of water. Ergo, reduce the population? Stop all immigration? One child per couple? A shower per person per month? Desalinate the Atlantic and the North Sea?

To save you from a cut-and-paste exercise, the link is: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst
My apologies for the carelessness.

(Duj) The average annual rainfall here at Hughes Hall since 1983 is 822 mm, considerably more that the 500-600 mentioned in the link for SE England and there is no significant trend over the period. It's not enough partly because a huge amount leaks from the mains and partly because people are extravagant with it, laying it out to dry in the garden for instance. Metering ought to be compulsory.

Yes, Rosie, metering here is compulsory. In other words you pay for what you use. Then again, my son who lives about a half-hour drive to my west does not have reticulated water - he has a 50,000 litre storage tank system (i.e. water collected from his roof). Many households have the same, regardless of reticulation.

As an aside, I have a solar panel array on my roof, even though I have electricity 'piped' to my residence. It will take some years to pay off the initial investment, but it sure as heck saves me and the grid many KiloWatt hours of usage.

This just in: Solar panels designed to secretly suck power out of the grid during night hours. Power companies implicated in complex billing scam. Film at eleven.

Orlando area Florida fields were awash in solar panels last summer. Everywhere here wasn't an amusement park or timeshare complex, there was a few acres of solar panelage. I even saw an enormous solar panel installation to one side of a development that had yet to break ground as far as housing went.